In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of plum tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Yummy®gem’. Yummy® is a U.S. Trademark, Ser. No. 75618722, owned by Johnny Appleseed Holdings Limited, Saint Georges Road South RD2, Hastings, New Zealand. Permission to use has been granted to the applicant by contract.
During the summer of 1993 I picked fruit from several open pollinated Purple Majesty (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,503) plum trees that were located in my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). The seeds from this fruit were removed, cracked, stratified and germinated as a group with the label “7P865 (OP)”. They were grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse and, upon reaching dormancy, transplanted to a cultivated area of the experimental orchard described above. During the summer of 1997, the present variety was selected as a single plant from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of plum tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is most similar to its seed parent, ‘Purple Majesty’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,503), by being self-unfruitful and by producing plums that are mostly purple in skin color, firm in texture, and sweet in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by blooming about one week earlier, by being a very good pollinator for ‘Yummy®beaut’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 13,478), and by producing plums that are somewhat smaller in size but mature about twelve days earlier.